Afolabi Fasogbon feels a sense of belonging at London Irish and can’t imagine playing anywhere else.
The 18-year-old prop has enjoyed a breakthrough season for club and country making his Irish debut in a victory over Harlequins in the Premiership Cup in September before playing in all five of England‘s U20s Six Nations matches.
He said: “I was surprised to make my London Irish debut this year as a young prop. Since then it’s been good, I’ve developed my set piece. There’s been a lot of good players to learn from so I’ve been enjoying it.
“It’s a great feeling and a sense of belonging. I feel like this club is for me, I enjoy being here. The supporters message me telling me nice stuff, so it’s great to be here.”
England started the tournament with victories over Scotland, Italy and Wales, with Fasogbon coming off the bench to score against Italy, but their campaign petered out with defeats to France and Ireland.
He said: “I’ve been able to play with some of my best mates and loved the campaign. In our first three games, we came out flying and we had high hopes thinking we’d get the Grand Slam but towards the end it didn’t go our way.
“The future is exciting especially with how we started the tournament and how we finished against Ireland. There’s only small margins and we can compete at the top. From watching the U18s play we’ve got some good talent coming through.”
Fasogbon has also been out on loan at National One side Esher playing in five games this season under England legend Peter Winterbottom, scoring two tries.
He added: “I’m loving it at Esher. They’ve got a good culture and I enjoy playing and testing myself in Nat One. He’s a good coach and it’s quite cool to play under someone who has been capped that highly.”
The 6ft 4ins, 20st 8lb powerhouse didn’t enter professional rugby via the traditional private school route, as he instead fell in love with the sport at state school St John’s in north west London. He added: “I started rugby at around U14s, so it was a late change. I tried it once in PE and then from there it was county and Irish picked me up.
“I used to play football, but I wasn’t enjoying it that much. I was predominantly a central attacking midfielder but played anywhere that was attacking which is maybe where my love for tries stems from.
“But I loved the physicality in rugby especially when it was new to me as I didn’t really understand anything else. Rugby wasn’t a big thing at my school, we didn’t even have a team, it was just something we did for a term. As a result, the step up to high level rugby was a difficult challenge as I was still learning the game and things were new to me like structure, but I enjoyed the challenge of getting better, so it was difficult but fun.”
Fasogbon’s aim now is to improve on his scrummaging. “I love the physical aspects whether that’s in set piece or attacking/defending but ball carrying is my speciality,” said Fasogbon.“Scrummaging is something you can never stop working on. It’s my main job and I feel like it can put me in a good place.”
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